


Afterlife

by USA_Tiger



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2018-04-21 13:11:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4830311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/USA_Tiger/pseuds/USA_Tiger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because Alistair backed out of the ritual at the last moment, the Warden died leaving her lover Zevran behind. For 10 years Zevran has lived life like in a fog, missing his beloved. But after a foolish attack against the Crows and an unknown spell from a mage, Zevran is thrown into a whole new world where he and his old world are video game characters and he meets a woman that looks very much like his beloved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Afterlife

Author: USA Tiger

Disclaimer: Dragon Age is property of BioWare. The characters ‘Christen’ and ‘Lisa’ are property of myself and the other person they are based on.

Author Note: This is her fault ‘Points at Asilyessam’, we were talking about characters from video games coming into the real world and how Zevran might react.

This fic isn’t meant to be taken too seriously, just written for the fun of it. Something of a cracky humor type fic. I hope it makes everyone laugh. Asilyessam has betaed the chapter for me.

Warning: Cursing mostly.

 

Chapter 1

 

On the top of Fort Drakon, a young Elven woman stood panting, wounds covering her whole body, robes torn. In front of her laid the Archdemon, the monster she and her fellow Gray Warden Alistair had been tasked to hunt down and kill. The girl spat out a mouthful of blood on the ground and slowly approached the twisted looking dragon, she just hoped Morrigan’s ritual did the trick as she really didn’t want to die.

The Archdemon twitched slightly then start to rise from where it had landed in a heap, causing the girl’s hazel toned eyes to widen and she cursed. She grabbed a nearby sword and rushed over, ducking under the dragon and cutting its underbelly with the blade.

“Christen!” She heard the voice of her lover Zevran call out in panic followed by the alarmed shouts of Alistair and Wynne. The Elven woman ignored them, rolling out of the way as the dragon crashed down to the ground again. Panting, she ran up and plunged her sword into the dragon’s skull, a bright flare of energy rushing forth, slamming into her.

“Maker, I hope Morrigan’s ritual worked,” Christen whispered to herself as she attempted to yank the sword back out. Her eyes turned and met Zevran’s, trying to pour the love she had for the other Elf in her gaze to her lover, then managed to yank the blade out. A large explosion of power blew from the Archdemon, knocking the woman and her companions back before everything went dark.

And in the darkness somebody screamed out her name then…. Nothing.

A few days later after everyone was healed and Alistair was finally crowned king, a large group of people gathered at Redcliffe Village. Upon a pyre laid their hero, the Elven mage Christen. She looked serene, peaceful as she lay there, oh so very still. In the back of the crowd Zevran stood, his golden eyes glued to his amor. He ignored Alistair’s… sorry, King Alistair’s pretty words as he spoke of how brave Christen had been and how she gave her life to save the people of Ferelden. Zevran turned his gaze to Alistair with a glare, he blamed the man for what happened. His beloved had told him of the ritual Morrigan had offered, how Alistair had agreed to partake in it. Nothing could be further from the truth, after asking Morrigan what had happened, the pissed of Witch of the Wilds told the assassin that Alistair had gotten cold feet and had back out at the last minute. He hadn’t informed Christen that the ritual hadn’t been done after all, so she had gave her all to kill the Archdemon thinking she would survive only to meet her death.

If it wasn’t for the fact Ferelden needed Alistair to start the road of recovery, and that Christen would have been very cross, Zevran would have killed the man. With a sneer Zevran turned and walked away, meaning to leave Ferelden and its cold and its smell of dog behind. He couldn’t kill that coward but he could take his frustrations out on a few certain guild masters that betrayed him. And if he was lucky… he might die in the process.

 

***************

 

“Oh that is bull shit!” Christen yelled at her TV as the funeral scene played on her game. “What the fuck!? Alistair and Morrigan did the freakin ritual, why the hell is my character dead!? Fucking glitches.”

Everything had been going normal on her game. She had played as the Surana character, basing the character’s looks after her own and giving the character her name. It was the closest she would ever been to an Elf after all. Then she had romanced her favorite character Zevran and played up to the final scenes. As her character had been a girl instead of a guy, she convinced Alistair to go have sex with Morrigan to have the Old God Baby then had gone through the whole final battle areas until she got to the Archdemon where she had pelted the thing with ballista arrows until its health was down.

After that, it went through the cut scene of her character killing the Archdemon. All normal. But then, instead of everyone, except Morrigan, being in the main hall where you could speak to all the other characters, it had cut to the ending scene where your character had died instead of lived. And it pissed Christen off!

“Damn it,” She groaned as she rubbed her forehead. Was this a normal glitch? She never heard of it happening before.

A crash of thunder so loud it shook the house and dimmed the lights for a second startled Christen who yelped at the sudden sound. Grabbing her phone off the arm of her computer chair, she hit the weather app on her phone and brought up the map to see how big the storm over head was. Her eye brows rose when the little map showed there wasn’t a single cloud over her area.

“Can’t be right, I can hear it raining outside,” She said as she slid off her bed and left her room. She didn’t notice as the screen of her TV crackled for a moment then changed from the ending credits of the game to a cut-scene of Zevran, wearing the black assassin outfit with the silver beak mask, fighting against other unknown characters one of which was a mage.

Walking into the living room and giving her cat Madam Curie, or as she sometimes called the cat ‘Fuffybutt’ or ‘Fuzzbutt’, a quick scratch behind the ears she unlocked the door and looked outside. It was defiantly raining. And raining hard. The sky was lighting up with flashes of lightning followed by the low rumbles of thunder.

“Stupid weatherbug, can’t even tell when it’s raining cats and dogs,” Christen said as she leaned against the door frame to watch it rain for a few minutes. She didn’t worry about the cats running out, all three of them were cowards when it came to the outside world.

Back in the room on the TV Zevran screamed in pain as a mage character hit him with a pretty nasty spell, the light from the spell lighting up the whole screen until it was solid white then cut to the opening menu of the game. At the same time, a crash of lightning hit the pavement in front of Christen’s house, the girl cursing loudly as she quickly closed the front door.

“Fuck!” She blinked several times, trying to get the spots that had appeared with the lightning flash to go away. As soon as she could properly see again, she noticed that the rain had stopped as suddenly as it had started. “Huh… talk about summer showers,” she said as she slowly open the door again, curious to see if the road had been damaged.

The driveway and road was wet, there was water dripping off her car, and the road in front of her house was completely undamaged. Instead there was a crumpled figure lying in the road where the lightning had struck.

“Who the hell…” She trailed off and looked around. She didn’t remember seeing anyone outside and bit her lip, debating on whether or not she should go check on the person. What if they were really hurt and needed medical attention?

Christen walked into the kitchen, grabbing one of the biggest knives in the knife block on the counter and made sure her phone was in the pocket of her pants then went outside to the body. None of the other houses on the street were stirring at all so no one was there to see Christen slowly approach the person lying in the middle of the road. She pushed the figure onto their back with her foot, knife held tightly in one hand.

The figure groaned, a low deep voice that sounded very male, and the weird looking bird-beak mask and hood fell off his head. Christen’s eyebrows shot up again, the man had bronzed skin, golden blond hair and a tribal like tattoo on the left side of his face that was made up of three wavy lines. And on either side of the man’s head were very long and pointed ears.

“What the hell,” Christen said to herself as she knelt down, not letting go of the knife. She felt a little crazy for thinking it, but the man looked a lot like Zevran from Dragon Age, if he was a real person instead of a computer animation that was. She pressed two fingers against his neck, feeling a steady pulse under the skin then out of curiosity, to see if they were real, reached up to touch the ears. They were smooth and felt like real skin, not latex. If they were fake, they were the best fake ears she ever seen, she couldn’t even find where the fake ear ended and real ear began.

The Zevran look-a-like groaned softly and shifted, making Christen’s hand snap back.

“There is no freakin way…” She said softly. The woman looked around again, there was still no one looking outside from the other houses on the street and the water from the storm was starting to seep into her pants leg. She stood, looking down at the strange man, what did she do with him? There was no way this was Zevran, no matter what her wishful thinking, and she really should call 911 or the police.

Tapping the knife against her arm for a moment, Christen sighed and walked over to her car, placing the knife on top of the trunk then walked back over to the man.

“I hope I don’t regret this,” She said as she hooked her hands under the man’s shoulders and lifted him up partly off the ground with a grunt. Carefully she walked slowly backwards dragging the man up to the house and through the doorway. Leaving him laying on the floor of the living room, Christen ran outside and grabbed the kitchen knife then ran back inside, closing the door and locking it.

The Zevran looking man hadn’t moved at all. Turning on the lights on the ceiling fan allowed Christen to get a better look at the man she had brought inside. In the light she could see he was hurt, his black clothing ripped up along the arms, chests and legs. Breathing deeply, she went into the kitchen and grabbed a first aid kit out from one of the cabinets then knelt down next to the man.

Two of her other cats, Tesla and Einstein a brother and sister pair, came over and started to sniff the strange man. Christen started to slowly undress the man, careful with his injuries as she removed tattered cloth and what appeared to be armor.

Under the clothing was a very fit and lean man, making for a very attractive person all together. The fact he looked like a real life Zevran was just a bonus. His body was decorated with more of the swirly tribal like tattoos she noticed as she cleaned and bandaged all the cuts she found on his body.

Christen ended up striping the man to his underwear, his clothing was soaked and it wouldn’t do any good to leave him in it. Sighing, she hooked her hands under his shoulders again and dragged him to her room.

“Fuck you’re heavy,” She said as she opened the door and pulled him inside. It took a lot of grunting and lifting, but Christen was able to get the mostly naked man onto her bed, pulling one of the blankets on the bed over him. “I really hope I don’t regret this,” she said as she looked down at the man, shaking her head then turned off her Playstation 3 and her TV. On the way out of the room she turned off the light and closed the door to a crack. Looking at the wet mess on her living room floor, she sighed and gathered up a bunch of towels to clean up.

 

************

 

Zevran groaned as he swam back to consciousness, his golden eyes fluttering open. His whole body ached, he felt like he had got a few rounds one on one with a Darkspawn Ogre, and lost. He sat up slowly, gingerly with one hand pressed to his head.

 _‘Last time I hurt this much was after…’_ Zevran quickly ripped himself from that line of thought. It hurt to think of her, to think of his lost love. Even more than it had hurt after Rinna’s death. Much more.

Zevran tried to remember what had happened, the memories coming back to him in bits in pieces. He had spent the last 9 to 10 years hunting down the guild masters for the Crows, plus any other high ranking member of the assassin order. And they in turn had hunted him. He had broken into the guarded stronghold of one of the highest ranking guild masters only to be met by the man’s strongest body guards and a mage. A trap, set up for him. The fight that followed that been short and brutal. Zevran had taken down as many as he could, while they cut into him with razor sharp blades. The Mage had thrown spell after spell at Zevran, spells that burned, spells that attempted to freeze him to the spot, spells that tossed fist size rocks into his torso.

Then at last, after Zevran had killed most of the men and women in the room, the Mage tossed a spell that Zevran hadn’t even heard the name of at the blond. The spell had slammed into him and Zevran had been filled with a blinding pain. As his world darkened, Zevran had hoped that at last he could be reunited with his amor.

It seemed that once again his hopes had been dashed. He checked himself over, finding himself dressed in nothing but his smallclothes. His body was covered in bandages, somebody had cleaned and dressed his wounds. Zevran wondered for a moment if he was a prisoner but then discarded the thought. The Crows would have never taken the time to address his wounds in such a manner. Not only that, but the bed he laid on much too comfortable to be a bed in a prison cell.

In fact wherever he was didn’t look like a cell at all. It was some sort of bedroom, filled with objects that Zevran had no idea what they were. There were weapons in the room as well, swords leaned up in the corners of the room and fancy looking daggers either hanging on the walls or laying on top of different surfaces. He panicked for a moment, wondering where his daggers were but then calmed down. Zevran didn’t know where he was, but he got the feeling that he was not in any danger here.

The door to the room was open a crack, allowing enough light for the Elf to see by. Zevran pushed the cover on top of him off and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, placing his feet on the floor. He gave it a curious look, the floor was covered with a rug that went wall to wall covering the whole area. He slowly stood, hissing softly in pain then shivered with a groan, now was not the time to get aroused from the pain. He slowly walked the short distance to the door, ignoring the aches in his body, and pulled the door open. The door led out into a short hallway and to his left was a large sitting room with a high vaulted ceiling. He blinked and held up a hand, sunlight was filtering it from a large window on one end of the room.

Stepping out Zevran shivered slightly as his foot made contact with cool, smooth stone. He slowly walked into the room, spying his daggers and the pouch where he kept his vials of poisons and healing potions sitting on a low wooden table. The room, like the one just came out of, was filled with strange objects that he had never seen before in his life, mixed in with familiar items that still looked very strange. His sharp golden eyes swept the room, looking for all escape routes, a door that led outside, another into a kitchen. Three felines, two off white with darker fur on their ears, face and tails, and a large orange long furred one, laid about the room.

A grunt off by the couch caught Zevran’s attention, the Elf spinning on his heel and reaching for a weapon that wasn’t even there. His heart stopped when he saw the woman lying on the couch deep asleep. He drew close to the couch nearly forgetting to breathe as he looked down at the figure.

“Mi amor…” He said softly hope, longing, and shock in his voice. He felt to his knees beside the couch, ignoring the pain from falling to the strange stone floor, and stared. It couldn’t be Christen, his love was dead. He saw her die after slaying the Archdemon nearly 10 years ago. It was impossible for her to be here… yet she was. Was he dead? Did he finally get his wish and was now in the beyond with the woman he loved?

Hands trembling, Zevran reached up and laid a hand gently on Christen’s face, his thumb gently stroking the cheek. Tears well up in his eyes, he hadn’t cried since the day he cradled his beloved still body in his arms yet now they spill down his cheeks. Christen stirred slightly but didn’t wake up.

Zevran leaned down, pressing his lips to Christen’s while his fingers slid up into short, much shorter than he ever remembered it being, brown hair. Christen gave a half sigh, half moan as her hazel eyes fluttered open, looking up into Zevran’s golden ones. The spell was soon broken as Christen broke the kiss with a yelp and quickly sat up.

“Dude, what the fuck!?”

 

*************

 

Christen had quickly cleaned up the living room, putting the sopping wet clothing into her washer and laying the armor pieces on top of the dryer. She had found about four wicked looking daggers and a pouch full of vials in the clothing, laying all of them on her coffee table.

 _‘Weird, why would a guy carry so many knives?’_ Christen wondered as she looked down at the blades. _‘I hope I didn’t just let a serial killer into my house that would suck.’_ She sighed and laid out a few towels over her wet concrete floor, letting them soak up the water. Seeing as how the weird guy was asleep in her bed, Christen laid down on her couch with a sigh. She tried to stay awake, just in case the guy woke up and she needed to either help him or protect herself, but soon lost the battle to sleep.

Her dreams had always been a weird mixture of things, so weird in fact that often she had to sit up in bed and ask ‘what the hell was that about?’ Some dreams were weirder than others, and she often wished she had the ability to lucid dream so she could at least dream about stuff she liked. Sometimes, dreams mixed with reality.

It started with a soft pressure on her cheek, Christen stirred but didn’t really wake up. The feeling was soon followed with the feeling of being kissed, a feeling that didn’t go away as she slowly woke up. Her hazel eyes looked up into eyes that looked like liquid gold, her mind stuck in that place between awake and asleep but rapidly moving toward the awake side. Soon her brain caught onto the fact that she was being kissed by the weird Zevran looking guy and she had been kissing back.

She yelped and jerked back in surprise, scrambling to sit up and moved to the other end of the couch.

“Dude, what the fuck!?” She asked in alarm.

“Amor?” The Elven looking guy asked, ears drooping just a tiny bit while he looked confused.

 _‘Christ, he even sounds like Zevran,’_ Christen thought. The man looked very much like the video game character, sounded like the character, hell even his eyes were gold looking. And it wasn’t contacts, she had a very close and personal look at those eyes while the man had been kissing her after all.

“Who the hell are you?” Christen asked. The man looked crestfallen, hell even his ears drooped down making Christen look at them in surprise as ears usually didn’t do that sorta thing.

“Mi amor… do you not recognize me?” The man asked touching her foot gently. “It’s me, Zevran.”

Christen had to keep her mouth from dropping open, that was impossible! There was no way this man was Zevran Araiani, Zevran was not a real person after all he was a fictional character from a video game series. Yet he looked and sounded just like the man. Hell, even the ears were real! They didn’t move like a human’s at all and she had felt them this morning, the skin had been smooth and warm.

“What?!” She yelped, her voice squeaking just a tiny bit at the end.

Zevran looked at Christen, worried and confused as to why she was reacting this way. Did she not remember him? Was the afterlife so cruel that his beloved no longer knew who he was? Then Zevran really looked at the woman, finally seeing the differences between the Elven woman he fell in love with and the one in front of him. The biggest difference was that the woman in front of him was not Elven, her ears were shaped like a human’s. She didn’t have the slender Elven body either, a bit thicker like a human would be instead. It was confusing.

But this was his amor, he knew it was. He could feel it in his heart and soul.

“No nonononono,” Christen said as she stood up and started to pace a bit then turned to face Zevran. “That’s impossible. There is no way you are Zevran.”

“Yes I am, is that so impossible to believe?” Zevran asked as he stood as well, grasping Christen’s hands in his own. Christen was trying very hard to ignore the fact Zevran was almost completely naked and absently noted that he was only a little taller than her by an inch or two. He was giving her an imploring look, begging her to believe him. And she wanted to, she really did. And not just because he was one of her favorite game characters.

 _‘How does that phrase go? If you eliminate all other possibilities, there is nothing left but the reality’_ At least Christen thought that was how the saying went. The point was, unless this guy had a really big Zevran fetish, he was in fact Zevran.

“Holy shit!” Christen said loudly and started to pace again. “How the flying fuck… that shouldn’t even be possible…. How the hell are you even here?”

“I do not know, I was hit with a powerful spell from a Mage,” Zevran said with a small shrug then looked confused and concerned at the woman. “Why do you find it impossible for me to be here?” Christen sighed and ran her hands through her hair.

“Ohhh boy, this one is gonna be a doozy to explain,” she said. “I’ll try to explain but first… you gotta at least put some pants on.”

“Why?” Zevran asked as he looked down at himself then smirked. “Does mi amor not find me sexy?”

“Yeah you are,” Christen said honestly. “And distracting. Come on, you’re short enough to fit in one of my lounge pants.” She waved for Zevran to follow, going back into the room he had woken up in. He jerked and jumped back in surprise as she touched something on the wall and a light appeared on the ceiling.

“What is that?” He asked.

“Hmm?” Christen made a distracted questioning sound as she opened a drawer on her dresser to get the pants.

“The light,” Zevran asked as he looked up at the ceiling. “It doesn’t look like fire, is it a mage stone? I know in Orlais they light the streets with stones powered by magic.”

“It’s not magic,” Christen said as she stood and pushed a pair of pants into Zevran’s arms. Zevran gave the pants an amused look, they were black and covered with skulls and crossbones. “There is a current of electricity that runs through a little wire inside a glass bulb that provides the light. This guy called Thomas Edison invented it a long time ago.”

“Amazing,” Zevran said in an admiring tone. Once he had the pants on, and he found he quite liked them as they were soft, he sat down on the bed when Christen motioned to it.

“Ok, first things first, you are no longer on Thedas. You’re on a completely different world, one called Earth,” Christen started out explaining.

“Earth?” Zevran repeated.

“Earth, Gaia, Terra,” Christen said with a wave of her hand. “Called all these at one point or another but Earth is the official name now. The whole reason why I’ve been freaking out is… well… honestly you’re a character from a game. A fictional character, someone who isn’t supposed to be real.”

“I don’t understand,” Zevran said. “I am real, I am sitting here before you.”

“Yeah, in your reality you’re real but here…. Look why don’t I just show you,” Christen said. She grabbed a remote off her computer desk and pointed, turning on the flat screen hanging on her wall then turned on the PS3. Zevran jumped again as the TV came on and pointed.

“Braska!” He cursed. “What in the name of the Maker is that?”

“It’s a TV, short for television,” Christen said as she started up the game. “It’s a device that lets people watch shows, movies, play video games…. Ok you don’t know what any of that is,” She added when she saw the confused look on Zevran’s face. “It’s shows moving pictures and sounds that tell a story.”

Zevran watched as the screen of the TV change, a dragon made out of blood roaring and flying on the screen then changing into the outline of a dragon with a picture of Morrigan of all people inside. Christen sat on the bed next to Zevran, drawing her feet under her.

“Ok, so this is a video game, an interactive type of story. The player, in this case me, takes control of the character on the screen and directs them around either fighting, solving puzzles, talking to people, it depends on the game. There are many sub-types of games, this one is called a role-playing game or RPG for short,” She explained.

“And it is called ‘Dragon Age’ si?” Zevran asked as he read the name at the top of the screen. It was… a little confusing to him. Christen controlled a person on the strange flat box? Like a blood mage? “So you control a person in the same way as a blood mage?”

“Magic isn’t real in this world Zevran,” Christen said. “At least as far as I know. And no, not like a blood mage, the person on the screen isn’t real. It’s just a figure made up of ones and zeros, a code of number that tells the character how to act, react, move, stuff like that. And yes, the game is called Dragon Age, just like the whole 100 year period your world is currently in. This game is part of a larger series made up of 3 video games, one table top game, a movie, books and a web series. All of it real in your universe but here it’s fictional.”

“I see… I think,” Zevran said, it was really confusing to him. Christen hummed, as if she knew Zevran didn’t completely understand but she wasn’t sure how to explain it any better. She pressed on the ‘Resume’ option to continue from her last save.

What popped up on her screen was not the last place she saved her game. Christen had saved her game right before the fight with the Archdemon, in case she died and had to start over again from that point. Instead the game started up in Soldier’s Peak area from the Warden’s Keep DLC.

“That’s me!” Zevran said pointing at the digitalized version of himself, dressed in the old armor he wore when he was still a Crow and while he had traveled with his amor and the others. “And that’s you as well,” He added as he turned his attention to the figure in the middle of the screen, of Christen how he remembered her looking, in her Elven form wearing the light armor she always favored. Also with the group were Shale and Morrigan.

“That’s the character I created for this game save,” Christen said absently. “I based her looks off mine and used my name.”

 _‘Why did the game open up here?’_ Christen wondered to herself. She turned the camera to look around, the NPC character Levi Dryden with the group, meaning this was at the start of the DLC, not after she cleared the area. _‘I don’t understand, this wasn’t where I saved my game. This is way back before I did the Landsmeet thing when I was doing some of the side quests for EXP.’_

Christen opened up the load game menu and checked all the game saves, all of her other characters saves were right where she left them but the save and auto save for the character named after her were changed to Soldier’s Peak, not Fort Drakon. Weird…

Of course this whole thing was weird, she had freaking Zevran sitting beside her on the bed. She huffed and closed the menu, going back to the game screen.

“Where are the others?” Zevran asked he only saw himself, Christen and the other two plus that Dryden fellow on the screen. While he wasn’t disappointed that Alistair wasn’t in the group, he did remember the man and the others being there as well.

“The game only lets you select three characters to take with you,” Christen said. “Only time you see all the characters currently with you is during the camp area and at the end of the game.”

“So does this ‘game’ show everything that happen during our year together mi amor?” Zevran asked.

“No, just the important bits and some side quests you could go on,” Christen said then turned to Zevran. “Why do you keep calling me that?”

“What, mi amor?” Zevran asked. When Christen nodded he tilted his head to the side a bit. “Why would I not? You are mi amor, my beloved. You are my goddess, my Elven warrior, my mage, my Warden.”

“Ahhh Zevran, I’m not ‘your beloved’,” Christen pointed out. _‘Holy shit. Is he saying that he’s not only Zevran, he’s the Zevran from my game save? How is any of this even possible?!’_

“Si, you are,” Zevran said as he reached up to cup Christen’s cheek. “You and I, we traveled together for nearly a year, we got to know each other very well,” here Zevran leered a bit, ”I gave you my earring, told you I am yours forever. I thought I lost you.”

“What happen to the Christen in your world? You said you lost her?” Christen asked. She wondered if this had to do with the weird glitch in her game after the final battle. Zevran’s eyes closed in remembered pain.

“You died killing the Archdemon,” He said. “You died when you should have lived.”

“Huh?” Christen said confused.

“You told me that any Grey Warden who slay the Archdemon’s life was forfeit,” Zevran said his head bowed a bit. “I was ready to sling you over my shoulder and run when you told me this. But you stopped me, told me Morrigan had told you of a way you could survive the battle.”

“You mean the Dark Ritual,” Christen said. When Zevran nodded Christen mused that yes, that was have been something she done, telling Zevran about the Ritual.

“Si and you said you convinced Alistair to go through with it,” Zevran continued. “So I did not take you away from the final battle. Instead I fought beside you against the Darkspawn all the way to the top of Fort Drakon. All of us were there in the city except for Morrigan. We assumed she left to make sure her child would be safe and able to receive the old god’s soul.”

Christen gave Zevran a confused look, she remembered Morrigan being there as one of the characters she spoke to before the group split up, taking Alistair, Zevran and Wynne with her character.

“But after the Archdemon was dead… you were not moving and we discovered you dead. After the battle I found Morrigan again and asked her why the ritual did not work. She told me that coward Alistair had backed out at the last minute,” Zevran snarled his face twisted in rage. “And he did not have the courage to tell you that the ritual had not been completed. You went to fight the Archdemon, thinking you would survive the encounter and instead you went to your death. The last 10 years my heart has been cold, a shadow of my former self. Yet here you are, mi amor returned to me. Human now yes, but still very much mi amor.”

“Holy shit, Alistair really did that?” Christen asked with wide eyes. Was that even possible? She knew it was possible for Alistair to refuse to do the ritual if you didn’t persuade him just right, but backing out? No, it wasn’t in the game code but she supposed there could be universes out there where it happened. It sounded out of character for Alistair though.

“Si… I wanted to kill him for letting you die,” Zevran said. “But it does not matter anymore, I have you here with me now, and I will not allow you to die ever again. Not unless I die with you.”

“Zevran, I am not your Christen,” Christen said. “That is just a character I created for the game. I’ve never lived in Thedas, never been an Elf or a Mage.”

“You are mi amor,” Zevran said firmly as he leaned forward, his golden eyes peering into her hazel ones. “I know you beloved, better than anyone. I know your soul, you are mi amor.” Christen huffed very softly, she was not getting through to the man.

 _‘I might need backup on this,’_ She mused. “Fine I’ll drop it,” she said out loud. The woman squeaked in surprise as Zevran grinned brightly and stole a quick kiss. Then he sat back and groaned as he rolled his shoulders.

“Braska, that mage really did a number on me,” He said as he fully inspected his wounds. He got up and walked out of the room. Curious, Christen tossed the controller to her system on her desk and followed him out, watching from the mouth of the hallway as he ruffled through the pouch with the vials until he found one with a dark red liquid inside. He pulled the cork on top and swallowed the stuff inside, shuddering slightly as if it tasted bad. He then removed one of the bandages on his arm and looked at one of the cuts there.

“Ok, that’s just freaky,” Christen said as she watched the skin slowly knit itself back together. “Neat, but freaky.”

“It does the job, no?” Zevran asked as he inspected the rest of his cuts to make sure they were healed. “Much better,” he said in satisfaction.

“So just what happened anyway?” Christen asked. “How did ya end up like that?” And how did you end up here was the unasked question on the air.

“After your death,” Zevran said with a bit of remembered pain in his eyes, “I left Ferelden. I returned to Antiva and took my revenge on the Crows. I killed several of their guild masters over the years, making me one of their biggest targets of course. I finally found the safe house of one of the most powerful guild masters, I kill him and the whole of the Crows would be powerless.”

“Guess it didn’t go as planned then,” Christen guessed. Zevran shook his head, his lips quirked just slightly into a smile.

“They were waiting on me, I walked into a trap,” he said with a chuckle. “I took out many of the guild master’s guards but I was weakened and unable to stop whatever spell the Mage used on me. I am not disappointed, I was returned to you after all. I should thank that mage in fact.”

 _‘Sorta explains how he ended up in the real world but not much else,’_ Christen mused. She looked him over and noticed the smudges of dirt and what could only be dried blood all over Zevran, and she was willing to bet that most of the blood wasn’t his. “Dude, you need a bath.”

Zevran blinked then looked at himself, lifted an arm to sniff which made Christen snort softly in laughter, then nodded. “Yes, I could make due with a quick wash,” he agreed.

“Come on then,” Christen said as she walked down the hall way to the bathroom. Zevran followed her, looking around the small room curious. “Ok, if you need to piss, use that.” She pointed at the toilet in the corner.

“That is one strange looking chamber pot,” Zevran said. It looked like some weird chair.

“People don’t use chamber pots anymore Zev,” Christen said. “It’s a toilet, you’re a guy so if you need to piss just lift up this part here,” She lift the seat to show him. “Just remember to put it back down when you’re done cause I don’t want to fall in. On the other hand, you got to poop, just sit on the seat. Use this stuff right here to wipe,” she held up a roll of toilet paper, “not too much and just drop it inside. Either way, when you’re done just push down on this lever here.”

Zevran jumped slightly as Christen pushed on the lever and the water inside the toilet whirled out of sight then the bowl filled up with fresh water.

“Maker’s breath,” Zevran said under his breath.

“OK, now this is a shower,” Christen continued as she turned to the tub. Zevran watched as she turned a couple of knobs on the wall, water coming out of a spigot like a mini water fall. It reminded him of the dwarven runes that let water flow into a basin. “This knob is for cold water and this one for hot. Just use both until the water is at a temp you like then pull on this here,” she tugged on the device that sent the water to the shower head making Zevran jump again in surprise. “And voila, a shower. Just remember to pull the curtain closed so no water gets out. This is shampoo and this is the soap, I’ll just get you a wash cloth- Fuck dude!” Christen yelped as she turned back to Zevran who had shed the lounge pants and his smalls and was standing in front of Christen completely naked.

“What? I was raised in a whore house, I am not ashamed,” Zevran said. He watched in amusement as Christen blushed very hotly as she couldn’t help but sneak a couple of peeks.

 _‘Well…. Now I know this man is hung. Fuck!’_ Christen quickly grabbed a wash cloth and pushed it at Zevran. “Towels are right there, just turn the knobs to off when you’re done, I’ll go get you some clean clothes!” Christen then quickly ran out of the bathroom and shut the door. Zevran chuckled softly to himself, his beloved was quite cute when she was embarrassed.

Turning to the ‘shower’ thing, Zevran stuck his hand under the water and was surprised to find it really was hot. Not too hot, just the right temperature to stand under. Grinning, Zevran pulled the braids out of his hair and the rest of the bandages off, inspecting to make sure all of the wounds on his body were gone, then climbed into the shower. Zevran groaned as the hot water hit his back, relaxing the muscles there, and remembered at the last second to close the shower curtain.

Outside the bathroom door Christen leaned back against it, her face still red.

 _‘Holy shit, how do I get myself into these situations?’_ She wondered then shook her head. _‘This whole day has been weird. I’ve got a real life video game character taking a shower in my bath room. A character who is one of my favorites and seems to think I’m my character from the game. What do I do about that? And what do I do about him? I’m thinking he’s stuck here and I can’t just send him into the world, if anyone discovers he’s from another world the government would probably snatch him up for god only knows what. So I gotta keep him safe… gonna need help brain storming on this one and maybe she can help me get Zevran to understand I’m not his world’s Christen. But first… he needs something to wear.’_

Christen pushed herself away from the door and headed back into her bedroom, going into the closet to find something for Zevran to wear. As Zevran wasn’t much taller than her, just a little wider in the shoulders, she grabbed one of her larger t-shirts and tossed it on her bed. She hesitated on the pants, she wasn’t sure if Zevran could wear a pair of her jeans and decided just to grab a pair of sweat pants she had gotten from the men’s section at Wal-Mart because they had pockets unlike a ladies pair. Underwear was out of the question as she didn’t think Zevran would want to wear a pair of panties.

 _‘Of course he might just be kinky like that,’_ Christen thought with a snort as she tossed the jogging pants onto the bed. She turned off the Playstation and TV then turned around, yelping and jumping when she saw Zevran standing in the doorway wearing only a towel that hung very low on his hips.

“This shower of yours was very enjoyable mi amor,” Zevran said then added with a lustful grin. “Maybe you will join me next time hmm?”

“Wow, you are just like a dog with a bone,” Christen said with a half laugh then pointed at the clothing on her bed. “Here, put those on, we’re going out. I don’t have any shoes for you so I hope your boots are still wearable.” She hurried out of the room past Zevran before he had a chance to drop the towel and show off all his naked glory again to her. Zevran’s golden eyes followed her eye, grinning to himself. Once he was alone again, he let the towel drop to the floor and picked up the jogging pants left on the bed. It wasn’t like any material he’d seen before and the inside was very fuzzy he found as he pulled them up over his hairless legs. The ends of the legs were tight yet stretchy around the ankles and the waist. The shirt he pulled on was black with gold triangle made up of three smaller ones on the front.

A few minutes later Zevran exited the room and found Christen sitting on the couch petting one of the cats he had saw when he first woke up. Christen looked at him head to toe, her lips quirking up just slightly when she saw Zevran wearing the Tri-force shirt she had nabbed out of her closest, he looked a little bit like a Hylain from the Legend of Zelda series.

“Well you clean up nice,” she said as she pushed the cat out of her lap and stood up. “Come on, pull on your boots then put this on. Make sure the hood is up.” The woman handed Zevran a thin hoodie shirt that he pulled on and pulled the hood on over his head. It hid the fact he had a pair of pointy ear and partly hid his face, which was the whole point until a good cover story for his looks could be concocted. Christen already had several flying around in her mind. Zevran pulled on his boots, the leather looking very out of place with the rest of the outfit but that couldn’t be helped.

“Where are we going?” Zevran asked as Christen stood, slipping on a hair of sandals to wear and grabbing her purple messenger bag with the TARDIS on the front and her keys.

“To go see a friend of mine, believe me she’ll want to meet you,” Christen said as she waved for Zevran to follow her out. Outside Zevran blinked into the bright sunlight, looking around curious. There was some sort of strange metal box sitting in front of them and he could see several more in front of other houses, most of them shaped differently. His ears twitched, he heard all sorts of sounds he had never heard before and he wasn’t sure what to make of them. He sniffed the air, there was a tang of… something… he didn’t know what but there was something in the air.

“Your world is very… different,” Zevran said as Christen stood beside him on the pouch.

“Yeah, I guess for you it is very different,” Christen said softly. “Alien even. Believe it or not, my world use to be like yours… well not completely like yours. No dragons, Elves, Dwarves, Qunari, magic, and most importantly no Darkspawn or the Blight. But other there was some things similar, but that was a long, long time ago.”

Zevran took a moment to absorb that, he had seen many things that were different and new. Things he had never even dreamed of… some of it almost scared him. Just a little… but at the same time he was curious. Highly curious and wanted to see more.

Christen hopped off the porch and unlocked her car, turning to Zevran as she opened the driver’s side door.

“You coming?” She asked. Zevran followed curious, finding the handle on the passenger side and pulling it open.

“So what is this thing?” Zevran asked as he copied Christen and sat in the car.

“It’s a car, there’s been versions around for a couple of hundred years but only the rich could only them I think,” Christen said as she pulled the car door closed then pulled her seatbelt on. “Then they became really popular and available to people within the last hundred years or so… I think so anyway, I don’t know the full history of automobiles, which is another word for cars. Here, you need to wear this so a cop doesn’t pull us over.” She reached over Zevran and pulled his seat belt on. He tugged at the belt as it lay against the side of his neck.

“A little uncomfortable, yes?” He asked. “And what is a ‘cop’?”

“It is, but it’s the law to wear it. And it keeps you safe if we got into an accident. Well mostly safe, it depends on the accident,” Christen said. “And a cop is another word for ‘police’, they’re the law keepers.”

Zevran jumped as Christen turned the car on, the roar of the engine giving him a start and the radio starting to play music. He clutched as the car handle and seat belt in surprise as the car back out then moved forward once on the road.

“It is like a carriage,” He said in surprise. “But no horses or oxen. It is like magic.”

“Cars way back went use to be called ‘horseless-carriages’,” Christen said with a laugh. “And it’s not magic, just very advance technology. We have a lot of that around here.” Zevran slowly relaxed and looked out the window, eagerly taking in the sights and asking Christen questions as she drove. He had gotten a little freaked out at first as they got on the main road and more automobiles of all kinds surrounded them the relaxed again as Christen calmly drove through traffic. She didn’t seemed worried so he wouldn’t either.


	2. Chapter 2

Afterlife

Author: USA Tiger

Disclaimer: Dragon Age is property of BioWare. The characters ‘Christen’ and ‘Lisa’ are property of myself and the other person they are based on.

Author Note: Long long long time since an update but I have been working on this on and off. It’s shorter than the first chapter cause I’m doing shorter chapters now. It’s also unbetaed, my best minion is unable to look it over cause of  phone and internet problems. So I tried to catch what I could.

Also, I have a twitter now, you can follow me at usa_tiger1983 where I post status updates, fic updates and fic rec and anything else.

Warning: Cursing mostly.

 

Chapter 2

 

Lisa's day started off much like any other day. She got up, smoked a cigarette, checked her email, and fanfics updates on her computer. Afterward she would usually get ready to start her day by opening her shop.

Lisa lived in a single two story building that had an apartment on top with a store space on the bottom. Her pride and joy was the tattoo and piercing parlor she owned and ran called Afterlife. Some days were busier than others but in general Lisa had good thing going.

Things changed today though, when she received a text message from her best friend Christen.

_"Lisa heading over. Don’t open the store yet, I need help with something. I’ll explain when I get there."_

Lisa wondered what that was about… oh well she would found out soon enough... and it was a good thing she was the owner of Afterlife, that meant she could run the store hours whenever she wanted so waiting a few more wouldn’t hurt. Besides, she didn’t really get any good business until the late afternoon anyway. And it gave her a bit more time to read fanfics!

 

*******

 

 “Where are the musicians?” Christen blinked and glanced over at Zevran then back at the road.

“Hmm?”

“Who is playing this strange music and singing? We are the only ones in this car thing,” Zevran asked again.

“Oh, that’s coming from my radio, I got a mixed CD in,” Christen said as she tapped her radio on her dashboard. “The music is a recording by artists and is played over radio waves, satellite or by a CD or tape.” She glanced over and laughed softly at the confused look on Zevran’s face. “Sorry, I’m not really good at explaining it, but this is just a recording of a band. The CD is mostly different types of rock and some stuff from Japan and other places.”

“Rock? How is a rock music?” Zevran asked fascinated.

“It’s not a real rock, it’s short for Rock and Roll. It’s split into different sub types, classic, metal, heavy metal, death metal, grunge, so on and so on. You also got rap, jazz, country, techno, pop, the list sorta goes on really,” Christen tried to explain. “Here just listen, if you hear something you don’t like just tell me and I’ll skip to the next song.” She turned the sound up just a tiny bit and Zevran relaxed back into the seat.

He found for the most part he liked the music that Christen’s CD played, only having to ask once for her to change it. The songs he liked most were ‘Camel Walk’ by Southern Culture on the Skids and ‘Washed my balls’ by Whateverdude. Christen just snorted softly and shook her head, somehow that last one didn’t surprise her. (1)

Soon Christen finally slowed the car to a stop and parked next to a building. Zevran followed her lead and unbuckled then got out, making sure of the hood of the jacket was pulled over his head.

“Afterlife?” He asked as he read the neon sign above the shop’s door.

“My friend’s tattoo parlor,” Christen explained as she led the way to a set of stairs in the back. Zevran perked up slightly, he liked tattoos and knew how to do them. Before knocking on the door Christen turned back to Zevran holding up one hand. “Just… just wait out here for a moment will ya? Don’t go anywhere.”

“I will be right here, mi amor,” Zevran assured her with a charming smile. Christen returned his smile with a weak smile of her own then turned to knock on the door.

“Come on in, girly,” Lisa’s voice came from the other side of the door. Christen opened the door and went inside, finding Lisa sitting at her computer smoking. “What cha needed help with?” Christen glanced at the door for a moment then back at her friend.

“The most insane thing happened last night, or this morning, one of the two,” Christen said as she waved her hand. “I mean really insane.”

“What is it?” Lisa asked as she snubbed out her cigarette and leaned forward. Christen gave a frustrated sigh as she rubbed her forehead then pushed her hand through her hair.

“It’s near impossible to explain and for you to be believing me, better for you to see,” Christen said as she had no idea how to explain what happened the night before without sounding completely insane. She walked back over to the door and motioned for Zevran come in. Lisa was surprised when Christen brought someone into her house then a grin spread across her face when she saw it was guy, she’d been hoping Christen would find herself a guy.

Lisa’s eyebrows went up as the guy lifted his head and she could see under the hood he was wearing, he had golden hair, gold colored contacts and a tribal tattoo on the left side of his face.

“Anyone tell you that you look a lot like Zevran Arainai?” She asked with a grin.

“Oh really? This Zevran must be a very handsome man indeed then,” The man said with deep voice with an accent that sounded close to either Spanish or Italian or a mix of the two. In fact he sounded just like Zevran from Dragon Age. Christen smirked and reached up, pulling the guy’s hood down and Lisa’s eyebrows shot up again, there was a pair of pointy ears sticking out of his hair. Lisa blinked then cracked a smile and laughed, giving Christen a quick glance.

“Either your man has a Zevran fetish or he is the one and only crow from Antiva!” She said as she stood up and walked over to Zevran, reaching to feel his ears. Zevran startled and nearly reached for a dagger he had hidden on him but managed to stop himself. Lisa blinked as she felt smooth warm ears that twitched under her touch.

“Personal space woman!” Christen barked. Lisa stepped back gapping a bit and turned to her friend.

“No way,” She said.

“Yes way,” Christen responded with a nod. “This is Zevran, the _real_ Zevran.” Lisa started to pace a bit, Zevran looking worriedly at Christen. “She’s fine, give her a second to process there. Here, let me turn on the TV, you can see what else it does besides play games.” Christen turned on the TV and turned it to Cartoon Network then explained to Zevran how the remote worked. Zevran sat down and watched fascinated as the cartoon characters moved around on the screen.

“Maker’s hairy ballsacks,” Lisa said as she glanced at Zevran again. She lit up with a grin and grabbed Christen’s arm. “Can I have Cullen? Oh sweet Andraste… I will give up smoking if you can get me Cullen…”

“Lisa, I have no idea what so ever how Zevran got here,” Christen said. She pulled her friend into the kitchen and explained what happen. From her game glitching weirdly with the final cut scene to the sudden storm and finding Zevran in the road outside her house to what had happen that morning. Lisa opened the fridge and got out a couple of beers, handing one to Christen who gratefully took it and popped the top. “And it’s not just _a_ Zevran, he’s _the_ Zevran from my save file. He thinks _I’m_ my character, that I’m Christen Surana.”

“Ohhh, you already got Zevran in love with you,” Lisa said with a grin.

“Lisa, be serious,” Christen said with a groan. “He doesn’t understand that I’m not the Christen from his world, that I’m just another version.”

“Alright,” Lisa said. “We’ll just show him my game then.” The girls reentered the living room. “Hey there Zev,” Lisa said as she sat down in front of the TV.

“This thing is quite entertaining,” Zevran said as he pulled Christen to sit down beside him. “What is that?” he asked pointing at the bottle in Christen’s hand.

“Beer,” Christen said. “You can’t have mine, I’ll go grab you one to try,” she said as she pulled herself back up.

“So you think the Freakie is your Christen?” Lisa asked as she flipped the channels to the one needed to play her X-Box 360.

“Freakie?” Zevran asked with a tilt of his head.

“It’s her nickname,” Lisa said as she started to fight with her system to read the game disk.

“Ah,” Zevran said. “And yes, she is mi amor. I would know her anywhere.”

“But she isn’t the Christen from your world. She’s _a_ version of her but not the one you knew. Ah got it!” Lisa said as the X-box finally read her game disk. “She was never an Elf and never a mage.”

“I wouldn’t mind being the Elf part,” Christen said as she came back and handed Zevran an open beer. Zevran blinked at the bottle.

“It’s cold,” He said.

“Beer tastes better cold,” Christen said. “I think they drink it warm in places like England still but people usually drink it cold here.” Zevran hummed then shrugged his shoulders and took a swig of the drink. He watched Lisa boot up a game file then leaned forward as instead of his amor and the others, as he was expecting, instead it was a completely different human woman, that bastardo Alistair, Lelianna and Shale.

“I do not understand,” Zevran said as he leaned forward to get a closer look at the screen. “Where is mi amor?”

“This is my character I made,” Lisa said. “You can make the character in the game look how you want, with what available in the game anyway.”

“I just happen to make a character base off myself this time around, usually I make up completely new characters,” Christen added in.

“Here, let me start a new game,” Lisa said. She quit her current file and started a new one, Zevran watching as the two women made a whole new character. This one male with brown hair that happen to be a Dalish Elf.

“…. I do not remember anyone like that,” Zevran said softly.

“He’s made up. Well maybe in a different a version of your world he exists,” Christen said. “But here he’s just a character we made up. Like the character from my game, I made her up and based her looks after mine. She was real in your world, I’m not saying she wasn’t but here I’m the only Christen and sadly I’ve never been an Elf.”

“You wish you were an Elf?” Zevran asked amused.

“I love Elves, I would want to be an Elf…. Or a werewolf,” Christen said.

“Werewolf?” Zevran asked startled. “Those monstrous cursed beings?”

“…. I’ve got to introduce you to horror films,” Christen said with a sigh while Lisa laughed. “Werewolves are fantasy here like Elves. Maybe anyway. So there are different versions and I’m fascinated with them and dragons.”

“So you understand Zevran? About your Christen?” Lisa asked as she turned to look at the Elf.

“Mi Amor died and was reborn here,” Zevran said making Christen groan softly.

“Not… quite what I meant,” Lisa said with a huff of air. She shrugged at Christen, she tired.

“Ok, let’s change the subject,” Christen said as she leaned forward. “What are we going to do with him?”

“Whelp,” Lisa said as she got off the floor and walked back to her kitchen, grabbing another beer from the fridge. “He can’t get a job without papers.”

“And he can’t get papers,” Christen said then sighed deeply through her nose.

“Papers?” Zevran asked confused.

“Official paperwork that say you exist,” Christen explained. “With your name, when you were born, where you were born, your parents, stuff like that.”

“So… why can’t I get these ‘papers’?” Zevran asked. Christen shook her head while Lisa lit up a fresh cigarette.

“If the government learned about ya they would snatch you up in a heartbeat,” She said after taking a drag off her cigarette. “If they got their claws in ya, well that would be bad.”

“Very bad,” Christen agreed as she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back. “We could try that Deep Web place, you can get false papers that way. But I haven’t got a damn clue how to get to that part of the internet.” Lisa wrinkled her nose and shook her head.

“Too risky,” She said then lit up. “He can work for me. I could pay him in cash, no paperwork needed. He can make a living that way.”

“You own a tattoo place yes?” Zevran asked, he quite enjoyed learning how to tattoo people while he was in the Crows.

“Yeah,” Lisa said and patted Zevran on the shoulder. “You should be happy Zev, I don’t take on apprentices easy. I will teach you how to use modern tattoo equipment.”

“Better than him just sitting around my house all day when I’m at work,” Christen agreed then looked at Zevran. “You don’t seem the type to be happy doing that, no offence.”

“No offence taken, mi bella,” Zevran said with a purring tone.

“What about his looks?” Lisa asked. “Not everyone plays Dragon Age but those who do are going to notice that he looks like his game character. And his ears of course, those kinda stand out.”

“Got that one figured out already,” Christen said with a smirk. “Cosmetic surgery. It’ll explain his looks and his ears. There are lots of people who use surgery to look like characters and fantasy creatures, all he’s got to say is that he’s a really big fan of the ‘character’ and spent the money to look like ‘Zevran’ and to get his ears reconstructed into Elf ears. He can also just say he got his named changed to Zevran.”

“And if people ask, we can just say he’s from Italy or Spain,” Lisa said as she sat down at her computer.

“Or Brazil, I can see him being from Brazil,” Christen said. “Say he’s half and half, one Brazilian parent, one Italian?”

“Maybe, his accent can carry one or the other,” Lisa agreed. “Ohh how about-“ Zevran tuned the girls out, only listening with half an ear as he turned back to the ‘TV’ and the game. His amor and her friend had a better idea on what to do than him in this case. Curious Zevran leaned forward and pressed on the stick thing on the controller watching as the made-up Dalish moved forward on the screen.

 _‘What a marvelous device,’_ he thought in delight. The buttons were a bit confusing and it looked different from the one Christen had used that morning, but he amused himself by playing with it and learning how it worked.

“Having fun?” Christen asked a little later leaning against him and watching his progress. Zevran let a grin loose as her warm body pressed against his.

“Yes, these game things are quite entertaining. It is interesting to see my world in this light. But I am curious as to why there are different wardens,” Zevran said.

“Well BioWare, that’s who makes the Dragon Age games, set it up so you can make your own character and use one of 6 different backgrounds for 7 different characters. The mage characters Amell and Surana have the same background except one’s human and the other Elf. Kinda found that annoying to tell the truth but I just make up my own expanded back stories for my characters. The character you saw on Lisa’s other save file was Cousland I think, I mean the character had swords on their back so I’m thinking Cousland. The other games have different character backgrounds and story lines.”

“So what are these?” Zevran asked.

“Well you know about the two different mages, the Cousland noble and you saw the Dalish. The other two are dwarves, one noble and one castless, and the last is a City Elf,” Christen explained since Zevran was going to have to learn all this anyway. “And you get to choose their abilities and class. There are limits of course unless you are playing the computer version with mods. Dwarves can’t be mages, if you’re a mage character you _have_ to start at the tower of Magi and if you’re a non-mage human you have to be a noble. That’s one thing I like about games like Skyrim better, you can make up your back story and choose how to fight.”

“Skyrim?” Zevran asked.

“Different game from a different series. I’ll show you some time,” Christen said waving off the question. Lisa came over with a note pad and a pen that she had gone looking for.

“Ok, I think we came up with a pretty basic history for Zevran here, we left it open so Zev could fill in gaps,” she looked up at Zevran and pointed her pen at him. “But you’ll have to keep up with whatever you tell people so we don’t get caught in a lie.”

“It’s gonna be a lot of work, I mean we’re gonna have to teach him a lot about our world,” Christen said. “You might be cool with what you’ve seen so far but it’s gonna be a culture shock sooner or later.” Zevran didn’t know about that, he found this new world fascinating.

“So what now?” Lisa asked as she took her controller and shut down the game.

“I guess I should take him to Walmart and get him some stuff of his own,” Christen said looking Zevran over. “He can’t wear my stuff.”

“He seems to wear what he’s got pretty well. And really, a Tri-force shirt?” Lisa asked with a giggle. Christen shrugged with a smirking grin.

“I couldn’t help it, which those pointy ears he already looks like a Hylian,” she said then snorted. “A uni-sex t-shirt and a pair of men’s jogging pants, yeah no he needs his own stuff.”

“What is this ‘Walmart’?” Zevran asked curious. “And a ‘Hylian’?”

“Walmart is this super common store chain, sells all sorts of stuff kinda like a giant market place but kinda not,” Christen said. “And I’ll explain the other thing later on.” Zevran remembered the wonderful markets and bazaars in Antiva, one of the things he had missed about his home.

“Well I am game,” he said with a grin.

“Okay, let’s get this over with. Might as well pick up some groceries as well,” Christen said as she stood up from the couch with a grunt.

“Let me grab my bag and shit,” Lisa said.

“You coming?” Christen asked with a raised eyebrow, Zevran standing up from the couch as well. He thought the couch really was quiet comfy.

“Beauty of owning your own business, you can set your own hours,” Lisa said with a grin. “And I won’t be busy until much later anyway so I got time to kill. I don’t wanna miss Zev’s reactions to our world.”

“Gods you’re easily amused,” Christen said with a laugh.

“Yeppers!” Lisa agreed, getting her things then following them out of her above-store living space.

 

**********

 

Zevran looked around with great interest as Christen navigated the thing she called a ‘parking lot’ filled to the brim with dozens upon dozens of the car things. The ride over had been short, going through the small city that had been filled with buildings like Zevran had never seen before. It was loud, bright, hectic… he loved it to pieces.

“This place nothing compared to a major city,” Christen said when Zevran made a comment about it. “Even Memphis is way busier and just more than this place. I can only imagine what someplace like New York City would be like for you.”

“You gotta take him to Beale Street one day,” Lisa said from the back seat. “Ooo, maybe see what upcoming concerts are gonna be at Mud Island.”

“Let’s just get Zevran settled into his life now before we start throwing things like that at him,” Christen said as she finally pulled into a parking spot. She looked at Zevran with a serious look on her face. “Now remember, if anyone asks about your ears or anything, it’s just cosmetic surgery you got done. Otherwise ignore any looks cause people are going to stare either way or just completely ignore you in turn.”

“Si, do not worry, mi amore,” Zevran said. “Everything will be alright.”

“Gods I hope so,” Christen said with a sigh wondering if taking Zevran to Walmart on his very first full day of being an Earthling was a mistake. All three got out of the car and walked up toward the entrance to the mega store, Zevran’s golden eyes darting about as he watched other people in the parking lot. It was loud, hot, muggy, and that strange scent in the air was worse here with so many of the ‘cars’. He loved the chaos in all of it.

At the doors he jumped back slightly as they opened on their own.

“Are you sure there is no magic here?” he asked in a low tone.

“It’s just a set of automatic doors, Zev,” Christen said. “See that thing right there above the doors? It senses when something large is coming toward it and it sends a signal to the motors on the doors to slid open. Hey Lisa, grab a buggy.” Zevran looked around, the building was lit up brightly with those strange light things like at Christen’s home and he could see windows on the ceiling letting natural light in. He took in the rows upon rows of shelves filled to the brim with things that he had no idea what they were or what they could be used for. He saw all sorts of people walking around some pushing metal carts like the one Lisa had or were riding some strange device that had a smaller version of the cart on the front.

“We should start with clothes,” Lisa said as she pushed the cart toward the men’s section.

“Yeah, we can get the foods afterward,” Christen agreed. “Ugh wait, let’s go to the Subway in the back first, I’m starving. We haven’t eaten yet.”

“It’s your show boss,” Lisa agreed.

“So Zev, are you picky about what you eat?” Christen asked.

“No, there is very little I will not eat,” Zevran said. “Sometimes you cannot accord to be picky. But I do love a good fish chowder.”

“This is just a Subway, I don’t think they serve any chowders,” Christen said. “But they do got tuna and seafood for sandwiches.” Zevran shrugged his shoulders.

“I will eat whatever you pick for me, mi amore,” he said.

“They got the toppings laid out so you can chose what you want on your sandwich,” Lisa said. They walked down past the aisles of food in the grocery section, a few things he saw on the shelves the thought he might know what they were but many he had no clue. At the very back of the store they walked into the small restaurant area, standing in front of the counter. The girl who came to serve them looked stared at Zevran for a few seconds then turned to Christen who ordered them three sandwiches.

“Here, this is a Coke, is a very popular drink here,” Christen said as she fixed Zevran’s drink and handed the cup to him then sipped on her Dr Pepper. Zevran followed suit then jumped at the strange taste.

“That… is different,” he said as he took another drink. “But good, very good.”

“It’s gonna be fun introducing you to the different drinks we have,” Christen laughed as they sat down at the table furthest away from the counter once they had their sandwiches. Zevran delighted in the tuna sandwich that was ordered for him then stole a bite of Christen’s BLT who gave him an evil look and held her food away while Lisa laughed.

“I wouldn’t do that, she gets a bit defensive about her food,” Lisa warned him. “She might bite.”

“Kinky,” Zevran purred but remembered how his Christen had been the same way though it was because the Templars would take food from the mages as punishment, at least that’s how she explained it.

“Just ask and I’ll tear you off a piece, don’t steal my noms,” Christen said with a roll of her eyes while Lisa laughed again.

“I promise, mi amore, not to do so again,” Zevran said then grinned and leaned closer. “But more on the biting thing.” Lisa nearly choked on her food laughing while Christen sighed and shook her head, but had a small smile on her lips.

 

************

 

(1) Whateverdude is a real band that’s local to Memphis, around where I’m from, and ‘Washed my balls’ is one of their most popular songs. Just look up their band name and the song if you’re curious, it’s a really funny song.


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